


more than just survival

by whataboutateakettle



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Coda, F/M, Light Angst, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:12:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5093687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whataboutateakettle/pseuds/whataboutateakettle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I wanted to thank you… for not leaving me alone in the server room.” // In which Toby and Happy have <i>a</i> conversation, but if it’s not <i>the</i> conversation. a coda to 2x06.</p>
            </blockquote>





	more than just survival

**Author's Note:**

> I have many feelings about last nights episode, and too many of them revolve around unresolved Walter/Toby issues. also I wrote this in two hours and did not edit it so excuse whatever mess this actually is.

She’s packing up her things, just about to leave. Her blazer looks dirty and singed and her hair is knotted and she looks tired, and full of steam she needs to let off. He can understand that. He wonders if she’s going out tonight, if she’s going to see Chet. And then he pushes that thought out of his head as fast as he can, because he _died_ today, and that if anything, deserves a night off from bad reminders. He picks up a book, a distraction, an excuse, and hugs it to his chest as he walks across the garage and to her desk.

“Hey,” he starts and she looks up straight away. Her lips are tight, and just then he realizes they had been on his today. And he missed it. He pushes that thought away too. “I wanted to thank you… for not leaving me alone in the server room.”

She frowns and her brow furrows, “You _were_ alone in the server room.”

He nodded, because he was. Alone in the server room. Impenetrable glass between him and air, him and the most important people in his life. “It helped having you on my side.”

He sees her jaw clench ever so slightly, and he remembers Happy asking to talk to Walter when they all got back to the garage. Wonders if her conversation was anything like the one he had with him back at the building. He remembers his heart racing and words trapped in his chest that he knew he didn’t have time to say because they were all still trapped in that stupid robot building and all he can think about is Walter walking away from him.

Happy doesn’t say anything, and eventually he nods. Leaves her desk and heads over to the sofa. His plan is to read until his vision gets blurry and his hands get numb and he falls asleep without having to think about it. Because he _can’t._

A few moments later she drops herself onto the sofa next to him, one foot up on the seat like a wall between them, her bag in her lap.

“Sorry I punched you. You deserved it, but still. Sorry.” She says, quickly, doesn’t look at him.

He expects her to leave, to leave him alone on the sofa with his book. But she stays, heavy silence between them, until he closes the book, traces the edges with his hand.

“You know that nine years ago I was in the backroom of a bar, about to get the crap beaten out of me and this stranger comes out of nowhere and saves my ass. The first time of many, by the way. And today that same person nearly killed me. And I’ve been trying to make sense of that in my head for the past few hours, and I just can’t.”

He hears inhale deeply and exhale slowly, and then, “He can be a jackass sometimes.”

He cracks a smile, can’t help it. His whole body is exhausted, he’s probably still suffering from smoke inhalation and he can barely think straight. And that right there was the truest, most hilarious thing he’s heard in a while.

“He’s not the only one,” she adds after a moment, and finally turns to look at him. Her eyes are sharp and unforgiving, and if he’d only ever seen them like this he’d be worried.

He looks back, nods his head slowly, “I may have gone too far with the independence thing,” he admits. And her tight lips quirk and her sharp eyes make way to softness. And it the best sight he’s seen all day.

She raises an eyebrow, “You think?”

He does. The thing is, he’s never been any good at quitting things, and she’s no different. And he thinks about her, screaming his name, Walter’s name, from the other side of the glass, her face slowly coming into focus as he regains consciousness.

He wonders if she felt anything akin to what he felt a few weeks ago, standing on that boat staring at flat water and praying for the first time in years. Almost hopes she didn't.

She must take his silence as an answer one way or another, because she pushes herself up from the sofa, looks back down at him. “You should go home. Get some sleep.”

He nods, because he should. And he watches her leave through the front door.

But here’s the thing, for years he’s been thinking of Walter’s home as his own, more so than any childhood home, or college dorm, or shitty apartment. For years, Walter has been saving his ass, from others and from himself.

And he understands the reality of the situation and the technical stuff and Walter’s reasoning and even his excuses. He understands they were all trapped and Sly was looking after those kids and hundreds of innocent people could have, _would have,_ died.

And he also understands, now very well, what it feels like to have your best friend push a button of betrayal behind your back. To have the air sucked out of the room, out of your lungs, until the world goes dark.

What he doesn’t understand is how you walk away from that.

Happy’s long gone now, and he’s been staring at the door for far too long. He should go home, his actual shitty apartment of a home, but there’s a thousand reasons why he can’t make himself move. Instead he forces all of them out of his head, clears his mind as best he can. He opens his book again, focuses on the tiny print until everything around him is just white noise. 

Maybe tomorrow he'll wake up and feel as alive as he is. 

 

 


End file.
